


Lovefool

by hollowbirds (torturousthings)



Series: is it true? [5]
Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, based on those i love love love you tweets, you know the ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 17:05:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16268603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torturousthings/pseuds/hollowbirds
Summary: It's effortless. A couple of clicks on a screen. It's a confession.





	Lovefool

**Author's Note:**

> i have thought about this for too long for it to just sit in my drafts.

The short version of the story is that I feel like shit. 

 

The long version— well. Well, well, well. 

 

My phone’s lying on the shitty leather couch, just at arm’s length. Everyone’s out. Jon’s mad at me because I didn’t feel like writing. 

 

It’s been twenty three days since we posted that message, the career-changing word vomit we gave to the fans as an explanation like you’d give a bone to a horde of hungry dogs. Twenty three days, and all I’ve been doing is thinking too much. I probably should’ve let the dogs tear me apart after all. 

 

I didn’t think we’d just stop hearing from them. I didn’t expect them to kick us out of their lives so unceremoniously, like an angry girlfriend would throw your stuff out her bedroom window in a blind rage. And that, I speak from experience. 

 

Actually, I don’t know what I expected. That we’d all just stop calling ourselves Panic! At The Disco, that we’d just go our separate ways and make music, be moderately successful. I was ready to put Panic! behind, I was ready to stay amicable with Spencer and Brendon. I had it all planned out in my head, the road mapped out. I’d never done that before. Most of the time I go wherever the currents take me, because that’s how you make beautiful discoveries. 

 

There was no way any of this could lead to a beautiful discovery, though. I knew that, and so I planned it out. Now I know that when a plan falls through, it hurts even more than when you don’t have one at all. Tip for next time your band is about to fall apart: don’t make plans. 

 

As my eyes travel the length of the ceiling, I remember something. One of those memories you didn’t know your brain kept, one you thought was already evacuated by the neurones to make more space in your internal hard drive. 

 

⁂

 

It was Brendon, sitting at the tour bus table as I laid on the couch across from him. 

 

It was me, lazily refreshing my Twitter feed, because it’s the most instantaneous thing I’ve ever seen. Thousands of tweets pouring in every second, people telling us how much they love us, how much they hate us, and everything in between. It’s a poster board for personal lives, a one way ticket to tell the world how you feel. 

 

A new stripe of white appears at the top of the screen. More tweets. More content. There’s always someone ranting about something. The weather. A broken heart. Dark thoughts. Cute dog pictures. 

 

My eyes skip on the words of the first one, which isn’t a dog picture. My head twists to look at its author. 

 

Brendon’s still sitting at the table, phone between his hands. The light streaming in from the window behind him makes it look like he has a halo; some nights, it feels like he really does. The way the stage lights hit him transport him to another dimension, and I wonder if he knows that. I know that. 

 

“What’s this?” The words are out of my mouth before I know it, and they sound indifferent. I seem to have a knack for that. Making people think I don’t care. 

 

Brendon’s eyes leave his phone and focus on me. His hair is starting to fall into his eyes, and he hasn’t bothered to shave in a while. “Huh?” 

 

I extend my arm and show him my screen as an explanation, but I’m sure he already knows what I’m talking about. He’s always a step ahead, even if he doesn’t like to show it. “The thing you just tweeted.” 

 

A smile creeps onto his face. “It’s a Cardigans song. You don’t know it? It was in Romeo + Juliet.” 

 

⁂

 

I didn’t know it. Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention then.

 

I stretch my arm to grab my phone and find the song now. It’s easy, just a few taps of my keyboard away. 

 

_Lovefool._

 

I stare at the little $0.99 on the side, taunting me.

 

Yes, I’ll buy you, you motherfucker. I’ll buy you even if that can’t buy anything else back. Not the band. Not him, not his kisses. I fucked up good, huh? But you’re here. Still here, since ’96, ever since someone’s heart got broken and made them feel special enough to write a song about it. We all think we’re so fucking special. 

 

I press play once the system’s gulped down my money, and the first notes of the mellow pop song with its disco beat ring out from my shitty iPhone 3G speakers. 

 

It’s so easy to type his name in the search bar as my newly-bought song plays, and it takes so little time to get to that tweet. I look at it again, at the letters stretching across my screen, his name above it. 

 

**Brendon Urie** @brendonurie 23 June

love me, love me. say that you love me. i can’t care about anything but you. 

 

Whoever wrote that song really was desperate. 

 

I lock my phone and stare at the ceiling again, the singer’s fragile voice going on and on about this love she couldn’t get to stay. Pathetic. 

 

I think of Brendon, imagine him with earphones stuffed in his ears and his head leaning against a car window, this song playing for only him to hear. He did that from time to time, just retreated completely to be with himself, him and his music. It happened so little that when it did, no one dared disturb him. Spencer used to say he needed to recharge, because there’s no way all that energy doesn’t come from a battery. Spencer’s full of shit sometimes. 

 

I wonder why Brendon felt the need to tweet that, at that exact moment, on a warm Tuesday afternoon, when the light streaming through the bus window made the dust in the air look like muted stars. 

 

But the truth is, I don’t really need to wonder. I knew exactly why, and he did too. He was too polite to tell me again and I was too spineless to do anything about it. It was easy to convince myself I loved Keltie, at first. Yeah, it was so easy to love her, because she was perfect. Graceful, beautiful, funny, smart. A dream girl. A girl. The dream part turned out not so great after a while, but she was still a girl. She wasn’t my band’s lead singer, and that was definitely one of her main redeeming qualities.

 

He really was beautiful, now that I think about it. 

 

Why am I thinking about it? 

 

Some feeling I’m better off not identifying starts creeping into my ribcage, so I grab my phone as a distraction, my eyes immediately drawn to the tweet I didn’t bother swiping away from earlier. Played yourself there, you asshole. 

 

Tap. New tweet. 

 

Tap. Taptaptaptap taptaptaptap taptaptaptap taptaptap. 

 

Tap. 

 

Tweet sent. 

 

There. Now I can move on, now that I’ve told him. Now I can live without regrets. 

 

Isn’t that what it’s all about? 

 

⁂

 

 **Ryan Ross** @thisisryanross          29 July

I love love love you

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
